


Food of Love

by toujours_nigel



Series: Food of Love [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Fluff, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-17
Updated: 2013-11-17
Packaged: 2018-01-01 21:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A nursery rhyme plays havoc with Remus Lupin’s first Christmas out of school. Sirius Black has always gone overboard about Christmas, but this time he has an agenda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Food of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for rs_games 2013, betaed by filia_noctis

“You knew what you were getting into,” James tells him, quite sensibly. “It’s not a full year gone that you helped him charm the cutlery into tapping out carols.”

“You’re the one who found out how to make it permanent,” he says, and if it comes out at more of a shriek than intended, well, he _did_.

James blinks at him. “Well, of course I did. All for one, and one for all, hurrah! That’s not the point. The point is, you knew Sirius goes overboard about Christmas, you’ve known since you were eleven.”

He opens his mouth to protest innocence and ignorance, and closes it again abruptly. He has known.

James beams beatifically. “Just so. Glad I could help, Moony. So now that’s all sorted out.”

“You’ve a date with Lily?”

“Worse luck, I’m taking her to meet my parents.”

“Is that why your hair is so well-behaved? Prongs. They’ll love her. They love _Sirius_ , for Merlin’s sake.”

“Well, but I’m not trying to marry Sirius. Not that you couldn’t marry Sirius, of course, perfectly marriageable bloke, but I’m not. So you see it matters very little right now whether they like Sirius, which of course they do, but the question is will they like Lily or will I have to live away from my parents or.”

“Prongs.”

James draws breath and stares at him with great, hunted eyes. “Moony.”

“I’ll just let myself out, shall I?”

“I think that might be best.”

Outside James’ flat, Phroog Alley is lit up and softly thrumming with the carols being played by the wreaths hung on every door. It isn’t as bright or as loud as Diagon, but it is still festive, and to Remus’ mind a homelier sight. Children are doing the rounds singing carols, some rather better than others. Some he recognises from school, a few of the younger ones from the shops in Diagon. Quite a few of them live in Phroog Alley, along with the junior Ministry workers and interns. And of course, people like Sirius and James, who could live anywhere in the country but would rather live within hexing-distance of Diagon. James at least has the two reasonable excuses of wanting to live near Lily and wanting to live near the Ministry; Sirius just thinks living what his parents would consider a pauper’s existence well within their sphere of influence is a sure way of annoying his parents no end.

He’s right, of course, and Remus is largely not complaining. He gets a room with very minimal rent in the Magical District, and Sirius is surprisingly adept at household magic and waives all appreciation of his cooking by insisting that it’s basically Potions, and just because he wasn’t as good as Evans or Snivellus doesn’t mean he’s bad at it, which Remus would disagree with but he’s usually too busy stuffing his face to argue. He doesn’t want to argue Sirius into a sulk, anyway, because he gets to come back from work—or from looking for work—to a warm, clean flat that is fragrant with the delicious smells of meals being prepared, and Merlin knows that’s a rarity: he’s gone to Wormtail’s. He’d known what he was getting into, deciding to live with Sirius, and it’s better than he might have hoped for.

And then there’s this evening, when he has to levitate a twelve-foot pine across the room before he can properly get the door open, and there’s tinsel and glitter all over the floor, and Sirius is asleep in his bed and has smeared red sparkly things all over the pillow and he suspects a fairy is zooming around in the loo, bashing into things. He drops his cloak over Sirius and goes to investigate the state of Sirius’ room.

It’s like being back in the Gryffindor dorm, or really worse, because then James and Sirius had done most of their prep work in the Room of Hiding, and the pranks that had involved all the Marauders had largely needed actualisation only near the end. Sirius’ bedroom is stacked with boxes all around the bed, which at least explains the loud cracks of Apparition that Remus has been hearing the last few days, and the bed is occupied by a large branch. Some of the boxes are rattling and emitting sounds. Right, then.

He gets Sirius shoved over to one side of the bed just long enough to split it and enlarge each half just sufficiently to minimise risks of either of them toppling onto the floor—not that Sirius wouldn’t richly deserve it—and climbs into his new, smaller bed in all his clothes. It’s been a cursed long day, and James was singularly unhelpful, and Sirius has gone utterly loony, and yes, fine, he’d known that Sirius was Christmas-mad, but it’s different spread across a gigantic castle and about fifty people than cramped into a tiny flat and directed almost entirely at _him_ : he can’t get away from it, and he’s not included in any of the plans, and really it’s not much fun to be one of Sirius’ targets.

But at least Christmas is in two days, and then it'll all be done.

 

* * *

 

 

Christmas Eve he comes home early and with great trepidation. It helps some days to have a furry little problem: he’s pulled shifts for two straight days at the Library in exchange for two days off at Christmas. It’s not the safest of plans, but he can’t deal with Sirius and the post-Christmas crowds at the same time and anyway Mr. Luminaire had only commented acerbically on the stamina of youth while approving the leave.

Their door-knocker is sporting a jaunty hat that clashes terribly with its scowling visage, and resentfully chants the first verse of “God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs” before letting him in to the flat. The pine has been moved to stand beside the windows and is draped with garlands of tinsel and corn, and on every branch is a squeaking little fairy all alight and content with its bit of peppermint. There are no gifts under the tree, which Remus isn’t sure whether to find reassuring or terrifying.

Sometime in the day and a half since Remus has seen him Sirius has found time to clean the flat to an extent that a house-elf would be proud of, and has turned all the tinsel from glittery chaos to passable decorations. And, from the smell of it, has cooked half a butcher’s shop. Remus finds him still predictably in the kitchen doing something probably illegal to a Christmas pudding, and is distracted enough by the way air warps around it that it takes him fully two minutes to register that Sirius is wearing

“Is that a _dress_?”

Sirius doesn’t even look up. “Yeah. Aprons were leaving my arms open and the damn thing spatters. Hang on. Almost done.” He twirls his wrist in a complicated sort of manner and backs away very carefully from the pudding. “When d’you get here?”

“Just...now,” Remus says slowly, wondering frantically where he’d left his camera. Sirius is wearing the sort of dress his Mum owns, knee-length and frilly and very pink.

“Good. You can get me out of this. Too many bloody buttons altogether.”

“Of...course. Just a minute.”

His camera, thank Merlin, is where it always is, and he takes a moment to dump his cloak and check on his presents before he bolts back out. Sirius is bending over the oven in the very picture of domestic femininity that is only barely marred by the denim trousers visible beneath the scalloped hem of his dress. Sirius, curse his eyes, isn’t even perturbed when Remus starts taking photos, and in fact poses very willingly.

“You realise men aren’t supposed to do this sort of thing, don’t you?” Remus says eventually in a sort of despair. Sirius is currently coaxing a recalcitrant fairy with a stick of liquorice.

Sirius ushers her to the topmost branch and shrugs elaborately. “Much I care if a bunch of Muggles call me a poofter.”

“That’s very...er, enlightened of you,” Remus manages.

Sirius shrugs again, a lot more strained this time. “There’s better reasons than a dress for that.” He glares like that wasn’t utterly opaque.

Remus blinks at him utterly uselessly. “But tons of girls fancy you.” Right, Lupin, very smart.

Sirius sighs, and pulls at his hair a bit. “They do. It’s alright. I’m going to the Griffin’s for a pint and a bite. Come along.” He pulls the dress over his head and struggles into a jumper in the time it takes Remus to collect his cloak and seems, by the time they’re out in the cold again, to be almost fine with his confession. Remus doesn’t know what to think of it, and isn’t sure he particularly wants to. Sirius fancying boys is a thought alien in its entirety: his mind wants to reject it outright and with a violence that frightens him. It’s not that he cares about it, he’s not as much a hypocrite as that, it’s just... new.

The Griffin’s Head is busier than usual. Most of the District families are too busy to start preparing Christmas dinner more than a day early, and even with magic it’s a fair bit of work. He grabs two mugs of Butterbeer and trails Sirius, bearing two vast portions of steak pie, to a table in the back.

“Eat first,” Sirius tells him before he’s even properly seated. “You look like you’re going to fall over.”

He hasn’t managed to have anything since breakfast, and when he looks up next his pie has been reduced to crumbs, and Sirius is smiling at him over an empty mug. “I don’t care,” he says, and it takes only a very little effort to make it sound true. “Come on. You were there for the whole debacle with Maurice Belby.”

“In a manner of speaking,” Sirius allows and grins wickedly.

“So who knows? James, obviously, but who else?”

“Peter might. Evans, worse luck. Andromeda.” Sirius stabs at his pie rather more viciously than he needs to. “My parents.”

“ _Bugger_. Is that why you ran?”

“No, not that. They don’t really care about that sort of thing just so long as the next generation comes along. Eat this, will you, I’ve been sampling the ham all afternoon.”

“You’re buzzing with _enervates._ Eat.”

 

* * *

 

 

Christmas dawns cold and bright. Sirius, he knows, has been up since five, and has been banging around in the kitchen and in his bedroom ever since. Remus listens for some time and then rolls back into sleep.

When he wakes properly Sirius is on his knees in front of the fireplace, apologising rapidly to James’ mum about not visiting her for Christmas and swearing up and down and on Gryffindor’s Sword that he’ll see her first thing tomorrow, on his word as a wizard and a gentleman Aunt Dorea, really he will. Remus smiles to himself and goes to put the kettle on.

“You could have gone,” Remus offers ten minutes later, when Sirius has accepted a cup of tea and is sat on his haunches downing it.

“I wanted to see whether I could pull this off.”

“Christmas dinner for two? Such a great challenge, worthy of the most intrepid of adventurers.”

“Twat,” Sirius says, and takes his hand to pull himself up. “No, I mean, it’s a grown-up sort of thing, isn’t it, Christmas at your own place. Last year we went to Aunt Dorea and the year before we all stayed at Hogwarts, and I wanted to do this by myself. ’sides, your parents went off to see your aunt in Wales.”

“You didn’t have to do this for me,” he says and stops because saying that never gets him anywhere with his friends, and because Sirius is smiling up at him and his eyes are lit up with the fire and it’s, oh, so very _very_ unfair. “You’re not doing this for me,” he says instead, and Sirius nods.

“Not only am I not doing this for you, but we’re in fact feeding four for dinner. Wormtail says he’ll only come for the pudding, but you know him.”

“Doesn’t James have to stay at home?”

“Technically, but he said he wouldn’t miss this for fireworks and that Charlus is going to politick all evening and he’s had enough of having his hand shaken out of the socket by Ministry toadies.”

It seems an absurd thing to be tired of, to Remus, but Charlus Potter has yet to convince anyone—including, Sirius says, himself—that he’s uninterested in running for Minister of Magic; their parties tend to have a high percentage of his colleagues and protégés, all of whom James is thoroughly tired of. “Do you still have cooking left over? Anything I can help with?”

Sirius, in the kitchen, has already shrugged the dress on over his undershirt, and, when he trails in after him, has contorted strangely to fasten it. He looks at Remus too intently for the situation and says, “Here, help me with the buttons, will you?”

There are rather a lot of buttons, and his hands keep catching on the rough fabric of Sirius’ undershirt. He’s flushed by the time he finishes, and there is a tight knot in his stomach. At the end his hand had brushed Sirius’ hair, and the soft secret skin at the base of his skull. It’s ridiculous how these things have taken on meaning: he’s helped Sirius with his Quidditch gear a fair few times, and they’ve all seen each other naked time without end, courtesy the full. And Sirius has been queer through it all, nothing’s changed. Nothing likely ever will.

He wants quite badly to go back to bed and sleep away his two days off. When he wakes there will be books to sort and children to keep from scribbling on the pages and maybe he’ll be able to forget and bury into oblivion this deep resentment that Sirius wants other people, but never him, even now that he wants blokes, always has wanted blokes. It’s petty and selfish and absurd, and Remus wants nothing to do with it.

He’s not allowed sleep, of course. Sirius wants him to help restrain the pudding while he ages it the last few days, to sample every item of food keeping in mind James and Peter’s peculiar tastes, to pontificate on the number of fairies required for the tree and whether Sirius should let go of the rest of them or retain them in anticipation of future lighting needs. By eleven he is frustrated and exhausted as though he hadn’t been asleep a scant hour earlier, and by twelve he’s smiling at Sirius’ antics and trying to pull him down off magically-elongated chairs and persuading him that the fairies on top of the tree do look perfectly fine even if they can’t quite figure out how to form a star. He feels better for it than he had thought; this sort of rough handling is very nearly what had been meted out to him in third year, and at the end of two hours he can credibly catch Sirius when he slips off the chair without his pulse spiking traitorously.

Sirius bounces to his feet and stands taking in the flat for a minute before nodding firmly. “I think that’s done. Sit, I’ll get you something to eat.”

“You’re worse than my Mum,” Remus protests faintly. It’s not that he isn’t hungry, it’s just the principle of the thing.

Sirius stops in the doorway to... to his bedroom, why does he even have food in there, and regards him gravely. “I should hope I am,” he says, and ducks inside, emerging after a minute with rather a large package.

“How hungry do you think I am?”

“Shut up and unwrap it, Lupin.” Sirius sets a plate and cutlery in front of him, and sits down looking expectant.

Remus has never been quite able to deny that sort of look from Sirius, more fool him. What emerges from the tissue paper is... a tree, more or less, albeit a very small one, with a grey bird on one branch.

He blinks numbly at Sirius, who beams at him. “I think your bird is dead, Padders.”

“Of course it’s... give it here.” Sirius takes the bird...ptarmigan, partridge, something, not a pigeon—in one hand and taps his wand against its beak. The plumage falls off, disappearing as it hits the table, and oh, of course the bird is dead, it’s cooked.

“It’s how they brought it to table in the medieval era,” Sirius says, “Nick told me.” He surveys the carved bird critically. “Hand me the pears, Moony.”

There are two, on the opposite branch from the bird’s erstwhile perch, one of which Sirius skins to pour out a thick gravy over the plate, while the other is simply a pear, which seems somewhat anticlimactic after everything else.

“You’ve gone starkers,” he says, “Sirius, this is too much.”

“It’s first-year Transfigs,” Sirius says absently, pushing the cutlery around. “I got bored waiting for the potatoes to skin themselves. Just eat, you mayn’t like it.”

“I will,” he says, quite sure of it; everything smells delicious and he’s suddenly ravenous. “Won’t you eat with me?”

“I had the works for breakfast, never fear. Now eat up, I’ve to go check on the goose.”

He catches Sirius’ hand before he can quite get away, a little awkward with longing. “Thanks, Padders.”

Sirius smirks, makes an abortive movement within the circlet of his fingers. “It’s nothing; I was bored.”

It is difficult, to express gratitude when the giver denies its significance, it makes you feel small and petty and somehow pathetic, to care so much for so little a thing. It’s nothing he’s not used to, after seven years with James and Sirius. He lets go of Sirius’ hand, chastised, and turns to his lunch. “Of course. Happy Christmas, Padders.”

“Happy Christmas, Moony.”

 

* * *

 

 

James arrives in full feather, rigged up for his father’s party, and immediately starts shedding articles of clothing—gloves, boots, voluminous cloak, outer robes—till he looks familiar again, eighteen and momentarily unsure. He doesn’t bother with greetings, just stalks to Sirius’ room. Their voices mount steadily, and Remus, charged with setting the table, braces himself for an explosion.

It doesn’t arrive. They slope out into the kitchen subdued, looking more alike than usual, James’ curls tamed for the occasion and dark with Sleekeazy’s, Sirius’ riotous happiness about Christmas marred.

“My mother sends word,” Sirius says when he’s seated. “ _Sends word_. Bitch.”

James, slumped beside him, offers, “At least it’s not summoned, this time ’round.”

“She did that?” Sirius’ family is sickly fascinating for Remus; he doesn’t understand them, can’t understand how someone could look at Sirius and want to break him.

“Year before last,” James says, and Sirius nods glumly. “You shouldn’t get so caught up with her, Padfoot mine.”

“No,” Sirius says, and straightens from his slump. “Right. Dinner. Prongs, you’ll carve, of course, Moony doesn’t know how and a right mess I’d make of it.”

“You managed at lunch,’ Remus protests, more out of form than anything else, and immediately regrets it when Sirius stiffens.

“And here Mum was convinced you must have been fasting for hours,” James drawls.

“It wasn’t anything,” Sirius manages, “Moony woke up late, so I gave him a separate breakfast.”

“Which required carving?”

Remus doesn’t, of a rule, interfere in the half-spoken quarrels these two get into: they tend to be incomprehensible and over soon. But he says, still, knowing it’s stupid, because it had been a charming and well-thought bit of kindness and curse James’ superciliousness, “It did. Some sort of gamebird, he brought it all in its feathers.”

“All in its feathers, eh. With fruit attached?” They’re engaged in a strange sort of staring contest, James looking at Sirius, Sirius looking anywhere but. “Perchance a partridge in a pear tree, Moony?”

“I suppose it was. Grey plumage, smallish bird.” He gestures with his hands, sketching out the shape and size of it while James nods knowingly.

Sirius slams the roast potatoes on the table, stabs a knife into the goose and shoves it at James. “Yes, it was. What of it?”

James laughs, and gathers Sirius close with the sort of ease Remus can never quite manage with anyone. “Nothing of it, pup. Everything looks marvellous here, you’ve outdone yourself.” Sirius, instantly mollified, stays in his grip a moment, and then another. James says, eventually, and loud enough to break through the sudden intimacy, “Shall we eat, or are we waiting for Wormtail?”

 

* * *

 

 

Sirius shakes him roughly awake the next morning and informs him that they’re headed to the Potters’ and does he need anything and to feed the turtle-doves that are in Sirius’ room. Remus, who has been sleepily nodding assent, comes fully awake at that last, and clutches at the corner of Sirius’ cloak as he turns to leave.

Sirius has the temerity to look annoyed. “What is it, Moony?”

“Why...” he starts, and has to swallow past a dry throat, “why do you have turtle-doves in your bedroom?”

“Oh, just had the idea, Muggles use them for post, you know.”

“I think that’s pigeons,” he manages, pushing up to sit propped against his pillows. “Turtle-doves aren’t pigeons.”

“It’s the same basic thing, though, isn’t it?”

“No. Pigeons carry post. Turtle-doves are, I dunno, some daft symbol of eternal love or some such.”

“Are they?”

He nods vigorously, but Sirius only grins more widely. He says, in a tone of mounting horror and shrillness, “Sirius, get rid of the damned things!”

“No, I think they can carry mail if trained to it,” Sirius declares. “I mean, Muggles don’t even think owls can do it, more fool them. Just give the birds some chickpea, will you, there’s a tin on the kitchen table, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Sirius, they can’t be trained,” Remus says, climbing out of bed and following him. “I’m not going to be responsible for this.”

James, frowning with a fistful of Floo powder suspended over the fireplace, says, “You might as well enjoy them, Moony, they’re for you really.”

“They’re _what_?”

“Nothing,” Sirius promises, backing away in a thoroughly unconvincing manner. “Nothing, Moony, just feed them, will you. And write your parents, I want to see whether they even need to be trained before they carry post.”

“Join me when you’re done settling household accounts, Padders,” James says, and steps into the fireplace almost before the Floo network engages.

Sirius grins apologetically and rushes in behind him, leaving Remus still protesting to an empty flat.

But really, this is not the worst thing he’s done for Sirius, nowhere near. The birds are in a repulsively-pink cage, draped with mistletoe, and take quite well to being fed and watered. They also refuse to carry any post whatsoever, instead gleefully crapping on every scrap of paper that comes anywhere near them.  
  


* * *

 

Sirius isn’t back by the time he’s cooked and had breakfast. He checks once, very carefully, on the turtle doves and fills their feed and water pots before he sets off to the Library.

The post-Christmas crowd is still out strong, taking full advantage of stock clearance sales and the Children’s Section is full of abandoned strays who are far more interested in getting into fights than in reading the newest instalment of Ethelreda the Auror. It’s brutal work getting them settled, but Remus hasn’t been a Hogwarts Prefect for three years for nothing: none of the children here have use of their wands, and the vast majority of them are below eleven years of age; he’s handled Quidditch crowds that were ten times as rowdy, and lived to tell the tale.

At lunch he switches out with Marybell Willis and heads to the archival section where the librarians have staked out their own little private office. Arie Longbottom grins up at him and says, “Can’t think’a how you abide the little demons, Lupin. Both Frank and I were better behaved than half your lot, and we always came close to killing each other on Christmas.”

“Oh, practice!”, he says airily, “And I’ve really never met any who were worse than my friends.”

“Ooh! His friends,” Jemma says, “Did you hear that?”

“His dashing young friends,” Elbur interjects, “Who swan in with no respect for library etiquette whatsoever.”

Remus can feel himself going pale. “My friends were here? Did they have any birds?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Jemma says, and grins wickedly.

“Merlin!” What was it now? Peacocks? Ostriches? Phoenikoi?

Mr. Luminaire, who till now had been surveying them like a kindly grandfather who isn’t sure where he went wrong, clears his throat and rests his folded Daily Prophet right in his watercress soup, “Yes, well. Remus, as you know we don’t look kindly upon visitors, but since your young man had the good taste and discretion to bribe me first, I suppose we can make an exception.”

He hands across the table a slim black package branded Les Péchés Sucrés de Bologne, within which, the label informs him, are to be found ‘Trois poules chocolat fabriqués en très gourmand chocolat noir, avec une garniture de caramel, nougat et noix grillées. Nos compliments pour M. Black’.

Remus takes it from him in a species of shock, and retreats rapidly to the Goblin Wars aisle in the Medieval History section, and eats his roast goose sandwiches in relative peace. He is sorely tempted to try one of the chocolates, but is afraid they might not turn out as advertised.

When he finally cracks open the package at five, he is desperate enough for chocolate to brave a charging minotaur if only the beast undertakes to be made of cocoa beans. The French hens are smaller by far, and have no life-like qualities beyond the sculpting. They are also unbearably, unbelievably delicious.

When he gets home the door to Sirius’ room is firmly locked, and theatrically loud snores are issuing from behind it. He goes to knock on it thrice, but never quite does.

 

* * *

 

 

When Lily drops in the next day, Arie and Elbur are still talking about the chocolates, and scrutinise her with a level of suspicion that is frankly disconcerting. Remus’ day thus far has been full of interrogations about “his young man” and where the hell does he get such good chocolate from, and he escapes with Lily to Florian Fortescue’s with great alacrity.

“You will not believe,” Lily says, stabbing viciously at her triple fudge sundae, “the Christmas I’ve been having.”

“But James said his parents loved you.”

Lily colours prettily. “I don’t know about ‘loved’”, she says, “but that’s definitely about the only thing that’s gone right.My sister’s got herself a boyfriend.”

“And it only took her what, three months after you told them about James? That’s fast work.” Lily’s sister has, from what Remus can tell, an obsessive need to compete with her in every sphere. Lily, because she loves her quite a bit, tries not to see this.

“Don’t say it like that. She’s had boyfriends before, but this one is repulsive. He works in some sort of manufacturing plant or something as an Assistant Junior Manager, and couldn’t stop talking about it through Christmas dinner.”

Remus, who has spent the past seven years and change listening to James and Sirius air their accomplishments every time they felt anxious, shrugs tolerantly. “Maybe he was nervous, meeting his girlfriend’s family for the first time.”

Lily scowls and eats a cherry off his ice-cream. “Maybe,” she allows, “but he was so odious about everything: his job, his degree in management from some two-bit technical college, his third-tier public school education. His _car_ , Remus, he talked about it for a good fifteen minutes. And it made Mum and Dad so uncomfortable, and Tuney just sat there smug as a cat, like she was rubbing our noses into the fact that she was dating up the socio-economic ladder. It made me want to hex her nose right off.”

Remus is... he’s not very good with people, not the way his friends are, but he does know enough to be sure that Lily won’t thank him for sympathising openly and awkwardly. Instead, and because it needs to be said, he offers, “This morning I woke up with four little black birds circling around my head chirping constantly. They stayed there through breakfast, followed me into the loo, and waited politely outside the shower-curtain while I bathed. I couldn’t get rid of them and Sirius kept trying to convince me that they complemented my personality. Mr. Luminaire had to help get rid of them. Lily, don’t laugh, it was awful.”

“I’m sure it was,” she giggles—exactly like Sirius had, minus the protestations that she’s doing no such thing. “I’m sorry, but you remember how James was all sixth year, till I agreed to date him.”

“Well, but it’s not as though Sirius wants to date me, he’s just gone starkers. I think he might have developed a thing for birds.”

Lily stares at him, face flushing, and says, “Right, a bird thing. Of course, it’s nothing like when James was trying to get me to date him, you’re absolutely right. I wish I could have taken James along with me for Christmas and shown him off to Tuney and her pigdog boyfriend.”

“That’d show her who’s dating further up the socio-economic ladder,” he agrees gravely, and then ducks fast to avoid the chocolate wafers she throws at him.

 

* * *

 

 

The next morning, Sirius asks him whether he has the time to spare. “I know you’ve evening shift at the Library, and I’ve barely seen hair or hide of you the last three days.”

Remus doesn’t point out that this is rude, speciesist and above all inaccurate. “What do you want?” He’s at the bottom of a bowl of cereal and contemplating the merits of another. It’s not his favourite sort of food, but Sirius’ long-drawn fit of cooking has exhausted their larder. He’s been planning a shopping trip for the morning, and doesn’t particularly want to get drawn into Sirius’ escapades, especially since it has the high possibility of involving birds.

“I thought I’d start on Uncle Alphard’s boxes, Tommaso might want some things back, and it’s been six months.”

That is impossible to refuse, and it is in a way rather a nice way to spend the morning. Remus had only ever met Sirius’ Uncle Alphard once, and he had seemed an interesting, if erratic, man. The contents of his study—packed neatly in two enormous crates—support that first impression. Alphard Black had been interested in astronomy, arithmancy, magical flora, mythology, oceanic creatures, wandless magic, French wine, rich fabrics, old books, and beautiful young men, in roughly that order: his life spills across Sirius’ bedroom in a chaos of light and colour. The sorting goes very slowly, Sirius telling stories about nearly everything he touches, and Remus asking where he stays silent. By mid-morning Remus has relinquished the actual task of putting things away to Sirius entirely, and is sitting cross-legged on his bed leafing through his uncle’s journals.

He’s at the end of the entry for 20th August, 1955—Cygnus has had a third daughter, who he is going to call Narcissa in defiance of our usual naming patterns, but she is his third girl-child and it is a pretty enough name and suits her well...—when Sirius lets out a jubilant sound and dives to the bottom of the first crate, his knuckles hitting wood.

He emerges holding a flat golden disc which separates out into five interlinked rings, and offers it to Remus. “Not that you need it, of course, but it’s pretty enough.”

It _is_ , and more than pretty. Lunar myths are inscribed on every ring, and each fills out to represent in detail a single phase of the moon. It’s beautiful, and heavy with age and loving use: it’s seen more places and more skies than ever he will, if Alphard’s journals are to be believed. “I can’t take this,” he says, setting it back on the bed, half-way between them.

“Call it an apology for yesterday,” Sirius coaxes. “And, look, I only gave you a coat for Christmas, and you gave me the toolbox and the motorbike manual.”

The coat had been very likely thrice as expensive as his gifts to Sirius, but arguing that will get him nowhere at all. “Are you planning on building one?”

Sirius grins widely. “I already bought the chassis, and Evans and I are going hunting for the wossname... _enger_ , tomorrow.”

“Engine. Sirius, are you sure?”

“It’ll be fun,” Sirius insists and Remus resolves to force him to work on it strictly out of doors.

 

* * *

 

 

Sirius waylays him on the way back home the night after that, smiling ear to ear. It’s mildly terrifying: it’s eleven of the night, and Remus wants nothing more than to gorge at the Griffin’s Head or at home and to sleep for a blissful eight hours.

“Whatever it is,” he declares when Sirius is within five paces of him, “I don’t care, I’m not interested, go away!”

Sirius gives this due thought, and says, “You’re just cranky because you forgot to eat and now you feel famished. Do you want some chocolate?”

“I... yes.”

Sirius produces from within his cloak a small chocolate egg in a beautifully spun marzipan shell. It is, at this moment, seemingly the best thing he’s ever put in his mouth. He moans indistinctly and very likely obscenely, and Sirius, curse his eyes, grins easily and tosses him three more.

“I was thinking,” he says, while Remus is occupied in the delectation of his second egg, “about the hens I got you earlier.”

“They were delicious,” he declares, and starts cracking the shell of the third. Too much marzipan disagrees with him, and Sirius loves them like mad.

“I gathered,” Sirius says dryly, “but they got over, didn’t they? So I thought, well, birds lay eggs, why can’t candy birds do the same?”

“Sirius,” he says reproachfully, “did these eggs come out of a chocolate bird?”

“Marzipan geese,” Sirius declares. “I’ve got six of them, they eat sugar and lay four eggs once a week; got them set up so only one lays each day, so there’s your work-week settled.”

“There are six geese in our flat? Sirius, you _twat_.”

“They don’t move around, idiot. And they’re much smaller than real geese, at that. Just don’t open the cupboard beside the cooling closet.”

“Alright.” He gives Sirius the shell of the third and the fourth egg entirely. “Thank you.”

In a moment he realises that Sirius is staring at him in mixed concern and anxiety. “Do you not like the idea?”

“No. I love it, it’s splendid. Thank you.”

Sirius colours and ducks his head.

 

* * *

 

 

His first thought, the next morning, at discovering their bathroom has been turned into a pool which seven swans are swimming in, is that this at least explains the geese.

Sirius is horribly reluctant to get rid of them, and is horribly sure they can eat them all up.

“When I come back from the Library, Sirius, they’re not going to be here, and our bathroom will be the way it was last night, or I’m going to chop you into tiny slivers and feed you to the cursed things,” he delivers, and storms out before Sirius can respond.

 

* * *

 

 

When he returns, the flat is blessedly swan-free, and brimming with delicious scents.

“Did you cook the swans?” He means it half as a joke, but Sirius, to his great horror, nods.

“All of them, we’ll be gorging on swan for days.”

“You _didn’t_.”

“No, of course not. It’s just ham and trifle. It’s almost midnight, last chance to escape if you want.”

“Do I need to escape?”

“No,” Sirius says, and frowns heavily. “Dora’s at an excitable age, though.”

“I’ve got the first off, I’ll sleep off the exhaustion.”

That gets him the first smile of the day. “Good man. Stow your cloak.”

The Tonkses arrive at the stroke of midnight. Sirius opens the door and steps ceremoniously back to allow in Andromeda Tonks, bearing an armful of gifts.

She gives Sirius a briquette of charcoal and a bottle of Ogden’s Old, “For you, oh evil one. May your hearth be always warm.”

She turns to Remus while Sirius is reaching for her, and drops a small sack of Galleons in his hand. “Don’t fret, they’re largely chocolate. May your year be sweet.”

“Thank you, Andromeda.”

She smiles at him, and graciously accepts Sirius’ hug. “Now brace yourself, Dora slept all afternoon to be sure to stay awake now. She’s very excited about the prospect.”

Oh, Merlin and Morgana, is she ever. Dora Tonks is all of five years old, and Remus cannot remember ever being in charge of a child that young: his youngest patrons at the library are seven or eight, below which Mr. Luminaire forbids entry. Sirius, used to a large family, and Ted and Andromeda, used to Dora, manage her easily, but by the time they’ve finished dinner Remus mostly wants to curl up in a corner and escape attention. It doesn’t work.

“Children smell fear,” Sirius tells him kindly, while pulling Dora off him with one hand. “They’re like dogs in that respect.”

“I’m not a dog,” Dora protests.

“You wish you were,” Sirius retorts. “Dogs are wonderful friends and they’re always up for a game and they always _always_ stay with you.”

Dora gives this due consideration, head tilted in a move disturbingly reminiscent of Sirius. “I could be a dog,” she says, and barks and changes her face to resemble a puppy.

Sirius wobbles at having a dogfaced child in his arms, but only a very little. “You could,” he agrees. “A clever girl like you. Here, come and show me what else you can do.” They disappear out the door, and then squealing and muted conversation can be heard.

In retrospect, Remus realises that he should have been alarmed at this juncture, but in the event he is lulled with excellent whiskey and sensible adult conversation. Andromeda, who works as an archivist for the School of Magical History in St. Andrews, reveals her long interest in going through the archives in the Library.

“But,” Ted says, shushing her, “we’ve been banned ever since Andi and I were found snogging in the stacks year before last.”

Andromeda snickers. “I was swotting for my qualifying exams,” she says, “and Ted here thought it’d be a brilliant plan to jump out at me from the stacks while I was reading about the Goblin Wars.”

“That’s an attitude to have towards assailants,” Remus says and wishes immediately that he hadn’t.

Andromeda pats his hand and pours more whiskey into his tumbler. “It’s New Year’s, nobody’s going to hold anything against you.”

“Besides,” Ted says, “that was hardly even stupid. Drink up.”

“Disrespectful,” he mutters, “sorry.” He thunks his head onto the table for good measure, and says when he looks up, “is there a little milkmaid at the door or is this better whiskey than I thought?”

It transpires that there _is_ a milkmaid at the door, bearing a covered dish of Cornish clotted cream, which she sets at Remus’ elbow before dropping an untidy curtsy and bobbing out the door.

“I swear I didn’t know Sirius was putting her up to this,” Andromeda says quickly.

“Or anything. We didn’t know Sirius was putting her up to anything.”

“I believe you,” Remus says weakly. “At least it’s better than the bird thing.”

“Bird thing?”

“He had swans in the bathroom yesterday.”

Andromeda, humming something repulsively cheery under her breath, says, “Yes, I can see why that would happen. But I think the birds are done for now.”

“What do you know?” Oh _Christ_ they’re all in on it.

“She doesn’t know anything. Drink up, love,” Ted says. “Look, here’s Dora again. Hullo lovey.”

Dora ignores her parents entirely, and marches up to Remus to set a block of Cheddar cheese beside the clotted cream. She’s wearing a different face this time, and her hair is short and red.

“I’m very confused,” Remus says.

“Common condition of dealing with the Blacks,” Ted informs him and confiscates his whiskey.

Dora darts in and out in quick succession bearing custard, cottage cheese, Stilton, curd, whey, and finally an enormous tub of ice-cream, which she presents to Remus with the declaration that she is very tired and Sirius has promised her half the ice-cream, please.

Sirius, who had come in with the Stilton, drops his face in his hands and mutters darkly about betrayal.

Dora, bewildered and cranky, says, “But you _did_. He did say it, and now my face hurts and I want ice-cream. Gimme it.”

“And that, I think, is our cue to leave,” Ted says, climbing to his feet and gathering Dora up. She stoops in time to nab the ice-cream, and sticks out her tongue at Sirius.

Andromeda hugs them both and kisses Sirius on the cheek before she steps out, and doubles back in to drop a kiss on Remus’ head and set his ice-cream back on the table, snuggled up to the custard. “Be good, children.”

Sirius gets up to lock the door behind them, and hovers anxiously after stepping back into the kitchen.

Remus, exhausted beyond belief, and quite drunk, tells him, “I hope there’s enough space in the cooling cupboard.”

“If there isn’t I’ll put a charm on one of the empties.”

“Good idea.” It’s just a little difficult to stand, but he manages credibly on the second try. “Mind you don’t eat my ice-cream.”

“I won’t,” Sirius promises, his voice a shade too ardent to be talking about dairy products. “Happy New Year, Moony.”

“Happy New Year. Or the custard. Feel free to have the Stilton.”

 

* * *

 

 

On the 2nd he’s in the Library for barely ten minutes before Mr. Luminaire sends him off to an estate sale. He returns in the early afternoon, tired and happy, with nearly nine-tenths of the texts that had been on the approved list, and with a fair bit of money still left over from the sack he’d been handed in the morning. He’s also managed to buy for himself a dog-eared and heavily annotated copy of _Malleus Maleficarum_ , which the previous owner clearly found immensely funny, and it hasn’t exhausted even half of his parents’ Christmas gift. It’s a good day’s work.

When he gets back, Arie tells him, “I didn’t know you were that much of a wine man, Lupin.”

“I’m... not.”

“So whoever sent you this was mistaken, eh?”

 _This_ is a Greek vase, a lekythos, black figured, with Apollo and the nine Muses drawn on it. He’s only ever seen pictures of it. It’s displayed at the Louvre, and dates from the fifth century B.C, among the first samples of this sort in Attic pottery. It’s sitting on his desk. Remus wants to weep.

“How?” he manages, and has to stop before his voice betrays him.

Ari takes pity on him. “The provenance letter says it’s a nineteenth century replica, don’t have a seizure. But Arthur’s Sword, she’s a beauty, isn’t she?”

 _Christ_ , but she is.

Mr. Luminaire has to send him home an hour early because he’s sat stupidly looking at his vase instead of filing returns. He goes back with a warming charm on and the lekythos wrapped carefully in his cloak.

Sirius is home when he gets in, and starts up when the door opens. Remus sets the bundle carefully inside a cupboard and shuts and locks the door, before turning to Sirius, who is standing, eager and confused and looking very _very_ young.

“Moony?”

“Why are you doing this? I don’t understand. It’s confusing and today was just an exercise in humiliation, and Sirius I don’t understand why you’re doing this, and I’m about an inch from hexing your nose _right off_ and...”

“I thought you liked that; you made James take about a dozen photos when he went to France last year.”

“I did,” Remus admits. “You’re right, it’s lovely. It’s also cursed confusing, Sirius.”

“I get excessive about Christmas,” Sirius says, grinning nervously. “You know that.”

“I do. I knew what I was getting into. You’re right.”

 

* * *

 

 

Sirius comes into his room when he’s barely awake, and sets a wooden box on the bedside table before retreating. Remus doesn’t open his eyes or otherwise acknowledge him. He’s not sure what he’d say to Sirius: they haven’t spoken since he came home. Some part of him is ashamed of his outburst, and the memory of Sirius’ stricken face wrenches his heart. It’s not as though Sirius has been cruel to him through it, except unwittingly, rather the opposite; it’s not _his_ fault that Remus is so twisted up about him that he can’t take a kindness. But it’s too much, all of it: first Christmas, then the array of birds, then Dora with her custards and finally the vase. And now whatever he’s set on the table.

Remus doesn’t look. He goes through the flat, looking at the decorations, the tree, the fairies which are gorging themselves on liquorice, the garlands of tinsel, and the lonely little sprig of mistletoe that he gets rid of. It makes Sirius happy, all of it, and Circe knows they need more things to be happy about. And it’s not that he’s been unhappy about it: he likes living with Sirius, even if that occasionally necessitates breaking his heart momentarily. And he likes the way Sirius has been raining generosity down on him when he doesn’t stop to think about it. And Sirius goes overboard about Christmas, he’s always known that.

But it rankles in his mind. Something’s off, something he can’t quite lay his finger on, some niggling bit of doubt. He’s queer and Sirius is as well and doesn’t want him. Fine. It makes a splendid amount of sense, but this last week and longer something has been subtly strange and he’s half-afraid that he’s delusional, that he wants so terribly to believe that Sirius loves him that he’s spinning fantasy out of air and kindness.

He fries and eats two resentful eggs. It’s very like Sirius, of course, to leave him high and dry and terrified without a word. This is what it was like in sixth year, with Sirius all smiles and enormous generosity and all the while planning to send Snape down to be eaten by him. They’ve all grown up, and nobody who hasn’t been spelled in can enter the cellar where he transforms, and he doesn’t think that Sirius wants anyone killed or him in trouble, but it’s always alarming to have Sirius behave like this. It usually heralds change, and Remus has never been very comfortable with the interstitial spaces when matters go from one state to another: he liked living at home, and he adjusted to lycanthropy as best as a child could, and he loved Hogwarts, and he likes living with Sirius, and if needs to he’ll make himself like living alone, but the process of going from one to the other terrifies him.

And he loves this flat, even beyond living with Sirius. It’s half the size of James’, or smaller, but that saves it from feeling like charity, and makes it feel like it does, like boys barely out of school shacking up in a small flat, doubled up to cover rent. And it’s homey, clean and warm and with Gryffindor memorabilia and paintings in rich colours hung on the walls and the larder stocked with food and Sirius dancing around the kitchen in his pyjamas and that ridiculous pink dress, and his own spartan bedroom with its sober furniture and the one rickety shelf overflowing with books. He doesn’t want the next change to sweep him out of this life, this home with Sirius, not for love or money or war.

Back in his room he thinks he recognises the box. He used to have one very like it: most children did. The complete set of _Arthurian Lords_ : Arthur, Lancelot, Gawaine, Balin, Kay, Bors, Tristan, Palomedes, Percival, and Malleagant. Not all the knights, by any means, but all the ones that were in the stories inscribed in the book that used to accompany the toys: he still has it somewhere, but his box went missing sometime in third year. He can’t believe Sirius remembered, and not just that he’d had the toys but smaller details, like the fact that Malleagant has always had his dagger missing, and that Lancelot’s helm didn’t close completely. It’s exact in all respects and not in any way perfect. Arthur even has the little bald patch where he’d nicked it when he was ten.

 _Merlin_. He empties the box out in sudden suspicion, tumbling the knights onto his bed. At the bottom, written in his father’s flowing script, is _Property of Remus John Lupin_. Sirius must have found it when they were cleaning out of the dorms at the end of seventh year. Why he’s kept it back so long is anyone’s guess. On the underside of the lid, as he picks it up to close the box, is taped a note in Sirius’ scribbled hand. He’d missed it when he’d slid the lid off, the parchment dim against the faded light wood of the box.

 _Dear Remus,_ it reads

_As should be evident, you never lost your lords. You were more interested in them and in lore than in playing two-a-side Quidditch with us, and I was bored and wanted attention, so I nicked them. And then I forgot where they were hidden. And then we moved after I found them, so they disappeared again for a bit. But here you are.  
_

_Love, Sirius._

He closes the lid and goes back to bed, drags an arm over his eyes to block out the light. If it isn’t the sort of love he wants, then he isn’t enough of a child to think it’s any less. Though he _would_ like to know where Sirius had managed to secrete his toys.

 

* * *

 

 

Sirius comes in again the next morning with another box, a little bigger, and darker in the morning dimness.

Remus waits till he’s begun to shuffle back out—Sirius is quiet, but not quite enough—before saying, very mildly, “How many of my toys _did_ you manage to nick?”

Sirius’ whole body jerks in surprise, and then he’s very still, like a pointer who has found prey and is awaiting instructions: the same sort of quiet tension. “Did I wake you?”

“Does it matter? Sit.” He pulls himself up to lean against the pillows, legs curled beneath him. “That’s enough space, surely?”

Sirius sits down, looking as though he is thirteen and Professor McGonagall has just delivered a richly-deserved scolding, complete with weeklong detention. “I’m sorry about the lords,” he says.

Remus laughs, genuinely surprised. “You can’t think I was still hung up on them? Sirius, it’s been five years.” He has the new box in his lap, and it _is_ new, as evidently as the other had not been: the wood is polished and the hinges and clasps are of shining bronze. It opens easily.

“I didn’t nick these off you,” Sirius says.

“No.” Nestled in the box are eleven bagpipers, each in the colours of a different clan. When he touches one, bagpipes start playing, low and melodious, in a tune he almost recognises.

“You told me your mum was Scottish,” Sirius says, “and I remember you used to visit your grandparents in Arbuthnott in the summers.”

He’d never thought Sirius even knew that, let alone remembering it. “These are wonderful,” he manages and hates himself for turning inarticulate. “Sirius, how ever did you...”

“I’m sorry I nicked your toys,” Sirius says, with undue vehemence. “You looked for them for such ages, and I couldn’t find them in the Room of Hiding, and I thought I should make you some new ones.”

“As interest? It’s a banking term, Padders.”

“Right. As that. I _am_ sorry.”

“I know.” Nobody could help knowing it, Sirius looks like he’s about to lash himself in penitence like his mum’s Muggle cousins do. “It’s alright, come here.”

Sirius crawls across the bed and into his arms with frightening rapidity, and slumps heavily and bonelessly against him. “Forgive me?”

“Always.”

 

* * *

 

 

By the time he bursts into the flat the next evening at a flat-out run, the little bubble of optimism and outright joy he’s been tending for the last two days has popped completely. He’s exhausted from running, paranoid about not having managed to shake off his juvenile pursuers, and in really no mood to be laughed at by Sirius.

“You,” he says, advancing on him, “employed twelve children to follow me around all day with drums. They stood in front of the Library to catch me during break, Sirius! They followed me home! One of them kicked Alice Longbottom when she tried to stop him!”

This last gives Sirius pause. “Was she hurt?”

“No,” he says and amends it with, “Well, not really. And that’s not the point, Sirius. Drummers?”

“Yes,” Sirius says and backs away.

“Yes, I know. They were right there, following me around, or had you missed that bit? Or, no, wait, you can’t have, since you’re the one who employed them. Why?”

“Twelfth Night.”

“That explains exactly nothing,” Remus says. “I don’t know what explains anything except that you’ve gone mad!”

“I have,” Sirius mutters, but Remus decides to ignore him. The sudden docility isn’t exactly endearing. One of the children had had the impertinence of asking to be taken home.

“You’ve gone starkers, is that it? Sirius, in the last twelve days you’ve given me twelve drummers, eleven pipers, ten lords, nine ladies, eight milkmaids, seven swans, six geese... five golden rings, four colly birds, three French hens, two turtle doves...”

“And a partridge in a pear tree,” Sirius finishes musically and miserably. “I’m sorry.”

“Were you...” it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever, but it’s beginning to be nonsensical in a peculiarly _Sirius_ sort of way, at least. “Sirius, were you trying to seduce me with a _Muggle nursery rhyme_?”

“I take that it hasn’t worked,” Sirius says. “Were the drummers too much?”

“The bloody swans were _too much_ ,” he says at a higher pitch than he is particularly happy about. “The drummers were... how have you ever got laid?”

“I never cared about any of them,” Sirius says. “It’s easy when you’re not actually thinking of them as anything other than targets.”

That makes a disturbing amount of sense, but he’s had too much experience with Sirius to believe it entirely. “All your machinations about me haven’t exactly been the spontaneous overflowing of a loving heart.”

“No. But I’ve messed it all up because I can’t think of you like that, not entirely. You’re just. _You_. You’re my Moony.”

“And you love me.” His heart is pounding against his ribs, and he’s mortally certain that Prongs and Wormtail are going to jump out from beneath the kitchen counter any minute and this will all turn out to be some sort of horrible, elaborate prank. In fifth year they once spent a month preparing for a prank; twelve days is nothing to that and Sirius is a man of leisure now, he has all the time in the world.

Sirius looks at him steadily, meeting his gaze and holding it. “I love you. I’m in love with you, I think I might always have been. For the last two years, at least.”

“When you were sixteen you tried to have me eat Snape and be executed for it.”

Sirius takes that too, nods gravely about it. “I didn’t realise I was a poofter because of you, but you made me realise that I was never going to be able to even pretend at respectability. And I hated that, and I think I hated you for it.”

“And you’re a Black.” Remus isn’t sure how he can stand here, a room’s distance from Sirius, and talk pitilessly while his heart is breaking. But if he goes to Sirius they will never talk again of these things, and he needs to know.

Sirius laughs, a horrible mirthless thing. “I’m a Black, we tend to get what we want and curse the consequences. My parents were summoned, you know. And they were proud of me for it: nearly killing two half-bloods who were proving an annoyance, it was the first spark of proper pureblood manner they’d seen in me in years. It’s why I left home.”

“You said they didn’t care that you fancied blokes.”

“They don’t. But I loved you, already, and I’d have killed you and they would have applauded.”

“So you left.” He is briefly, incandescently, jealous of James, who must have never been told these secrets because they were never secrets from him. It flashes through him, cauterising the wound, immaterial now.

Sirius nods, still looking wary.

“And at some point in the last two years you decided that inflicting birds and little children on me was the right way to win my affections.”

Sirius nods again.

“Sirius. _Sirius_. You couldn’t have asked?”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d say.”

“Humbug,” he says, and smiles openly. “You just thought this would be more fun, admit it.”

Sirius shrugs and crosses the room in two strides, catching him by the elbows and drawing him close. “Will you say yes, if I ask?”

“Ask.”

Sirius growls, very like Padfoot. “Fine. Yes. Remus John Lupin, will you do me the high honour of bestowing your... ow, Moony, that bloody well hurt.”

“It should. Ask better.”

“I love you,” Sirius says, closing his eyes like he can’t bear to watch the reaction. “Be mine?”

“Yes,” Remus says, and laughs. “Did you think I could say different?”

“You’re changeable like the moon,” Sirius declares and gets pinched for his efforts.

“You’re lucky I didn’t hex you. Swans, I ask.”

“You’ve no sense of humour.”

“None. Are you planning on waiting another fortnight before you kiss me?”

Sirius kisses him like he’s afraid Remus is going to Disapparate from his arms, with a desperation that is both enthralling and terrifying. Remus tries to gentle it in vain and finds also that he cannot pull back easily. He finds that he doesn’t want to; it is wonderful for many reasons, being kissed by Sirius: the sensations of kissing him, the idea of it, the very fact of being kissed at all after so long without, the notion that this proves that Sirius loves him too and it isn’t a cruel prank after all.

When someone bangs on the door hard enough to nearly take it off the hinges, Remus has the dubious pleasure of watching Sirius have to deal with the extremely obdurate leader of the drummers.

 

* * *

 

 

Later, watching Sirius shrink the tinsel garlands and coax the fairies to leave, Remus says, suddenly struck by the thought, “Who knew? James, obviously, and I suppose Lily, from the way she hinted at things, and... Sirius?”

Sirius flushes an ugly, blotchy shade of scarlet. “Everyone”

“Even Andromeda?”

“Even Dora,” Sirius says, and straightens to face him. “If it’s any consolation, she thought it was very sweet.”

“I bet she did. Sirius, really. You could just have asked, anytime in the last four years.”

“That long, eh?” It’s absurd that Sirius believes he has the higher moral ground in this matter, but Remus finds it rather endearing. He has had rather a lot of chocolate, and been kissed for very long and extremely well, and—absurdity of absurdities—Sirius Black is in love with him.

He pulls Sirius down and kisses his forehead, temples, mouth. “Yes,” he says, and delights in the way Sirius shivers. “Always.”  
  



End file.
